At the Oscars, ‘The Cave’ aims to provide hope to Syria

Home is a complicated notion for Feras Fayyad, the director of the Oscar-nominated Syrian documentary “The Cave.” His family home in Syria is believed to have been taken just weeks ago as President’s

Bashar al-Assad’s Russian-backed forces seized the area. His family is living in temporary housing near the Turkish border. For several years, Fayyad has been living in exile in Copenhagen.

After a lengthy struggle to obtain a visa to attend Sunday’s Academy Awards that included an outpouring of support from the film community, Fayyad finally arrived last week in Los Angeles. Being among filmmakers and friends he has made through his two Oscar-nominated films, Fayyad said, has been a relief. Even a little like being home.

“The Cave,” Fayyad’s follow-up to this Oscar-nominated “The Last Man in Aleppo” (which made him the first Syrian filmmaker nominated for an Oscar) is one of the five films nominated for best documentary at this Sunday’s Academy Awards. Shot between 2012 and 2018, it depicts a subterranean medical facility in Eastern Ghouta during constant bombing by Syrian government forces and their Russian allies. The hospital lacks much of what it needs, including anesthetics and food, and the incoming flow of injured and dead — many of them children — is ceaseless.

“A lot of minds will be blown, a lot of minds will be changed when they see the courage of this woman,” says Fayyad.

They come to the Academy Awards with heavy hearts, intent on providing a beacon for Syria. But they aren’t immune to the celebrity of the Oscars. At the film academy’s luncheon last week, Fayyad met Brad Pitt and Al Pacino.

Chris Pizzello / Associated Press Sigrid Dyekjaer, left, Feras Fayyad and Kirstine Barfod pose for a portrait at the 92nd Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at the Loews Hotel in Los Angeles.